BCS Rankings Projections 2011: Is Clemson This Year's Auburn?

Last year, the college football landscape was taken by storm by a surprising team from the Southeastern Conference in the Auburn Tigers. Auburn started the year unranked in both the Associated Press and USA Today coaches polls.  

When the first BCS poll was released in Week 8 of 2010, the Tigers were ranked No. 4. By Week 9 of the ’10 season, they were ranked No. 1 in the BCS poll and No. 3 in the AP and the USA Today polls.  

In one week they leapfrogged over three teams to claim a spot they would not give up for the rest of the ’10 season. 

The end of the season, Auburn went from an unranked team to first in every polls, while holding up the “Coaches Trophy,” also known as the Bowl Championship Series National Title.  

This year only one team can claim the title of being “This Year’s Auburn.”  

The team isn’t a surprising program from the SEC but a rising squad from the only conference yet to win a BCS Championship in the 2000s (Florida State won the BCS in the ’99 season), the Atlantic Coast Conference, in the Clemson Tigers. 

Clemson started out this year much like Auburn, by not being ranked in the preseason polls. In fact, only the USA Today coaches poll gave Clemson votes for the Top 25.  

Week 4 saw the Tigers crack the polls for the first time at No. 22 after an upset victory over the defending national champion, Auburn.  

This started the first of three upset victories over ranked teams, as the next week Clemson rolled over No. 11 Florida State and then traveled to Virginia Tech the following week to lay a beat down to the 11th ranked team in the country at the time and defending ACC champions.  

After that tear of games, and a blowout win against Boston College last week, the Tigers are 6-0 on the season, ranked No. 8 in both polls.  

Clemson won’t open the BCS poll at the same spot as Auburn did last year, but, they shouldn’t be that far off, possibly ranking No. 8.  

Clemson will get their shot at improving their ranking in the BCS poll, as they have games left against No. 12 Georgia Tech and No. 15 South Carolina, plus the ACC Championship game.  

Winning those games, along with their three-game winning streak earlier in the year, will give the Tigers five regular-season victories over ranked teams, one more victory than Auburn had last year.  

Will Clemson come out of nowhere like Auburn did last year to win the BCS National Championship trophy? That’s for the voters of the polls and computers to figure out where they will end up being ranked.  

But, if Clemson goes undefeated this year, it will be hard to ignore their case as to why they should play for the National Title this year. 

Twitter: @tjmcaloon